And Then There Were Three
by Fallen Ark Angel
Summary: The exhaustion of preparing for a third baby just might kill Paul before the newborn gets a chance to, but dang if, in the end, it's not all worth it. - One-shot.


"What's that one?"

"A lion."

"Uh-huh," the man yawed tiredly as he took to pointing to another animal on the page. "And that one?"

"Mmmm….A g'raf."

"Giraffe, yeah. And that one?"

"A 'eer."

"That's not a deer. Deer, by the way. Not ear."

"Uh-huh."

"Uh-huh what? Because you're wrong on both counts."

"It's an 'eer."

He gave up on the latter for a moment, saying instead, "It's an antelope."

"It's a 'eer, Daddy." His daughter was also tired, but more over of her father's ignorance than the early hour. "Like Bambi."

"Does Bambi have horns?"

"Mmmm...yes."

"No." Did he? Frowning, the man tapped at the page. "And Bambi's fur didn't look like this, now did it?"

The page was only one of many in the big book of animals that his oldest daughter must have been gifted at some point or another and, that morning, the man was using it to teach her about different animals. They were on the African Savanna page at the moment and being treated with a depiction of the habitat. There was a lion stretched atop a rock, some zebra and giraffes grazing, and even some meerkats scattered about. It didn't go much in the way of information, but if they were apparently struggling with basic identification, he couldn't fault it none.

"Yes," was his daughter's response then and, raising his hand to rub at his eyes, it was noted then that they also had a lying problem. Upon seeing this though, his daughter frowned up from the book. "Daddy are you still sleepy?"

"A little," he sighed with a shake of his head. "Just thinking about the new baby kept me up all night, is all. It's okay."

She wasn't too concerned with him, honestly, as she'd was more focused on turning the page to find the next was a jungle theme! And ooh, she knew most the animals. Well, some of them. Enough for her father to be impressed with her, at least, and do that thing where he smiled real big at her and call her such a smart girl.

Not to mention, the man was always tired. As far as she could tell, he stayed tired. There was rarely a time when, away from work and the gym, he wasn't yawning or claiming to just be 'resting his eyes' when they stretched out on the floor to play with toys. It was just a trait that her father seemed to carry and, honestly, wasn't o that much interest to the little girl in anyway. Her mother had the same ailment, after all.

And Bluto. The dog. But she was pretty sure that was just because he was lazy.

Things were different though, those past few months. Honestly, every two years felt different to her father. When he was young, working his ass off to get into the wrestling business, he was tired. When he was older and got married, he was tired as well, but it was a different kind of tired. The kind of tired that came from arguing over the phone with your wife about nonsense because you'd both been up too long and then hanging up only to call right back because you couldn't sleep, though if you just tried, maybe you could, but you say you can't because you don't want to when you're both fighting and so far away from one another. The kind that came from finally being able to be around one another, but just wanting to sleep because work was hard and the breaks between it were short. And once you're finally all adjusted to that, it was time for the next phase to set in.

Because now your tiredness is rooted in the fact your wife is pregnant and things are different and she's tired too, more so than you, she says, but how can she be when she gets to sleep while sending you out with the dog to the bathroom that she wanted in the first place? But that tiredness would pass quickly because oh, wow, now he had a little tiny baby that he loved and cherished that seemed to hate him and his sanity with a passion never before seen. She cried relentlessly at times for seemingly no reason. Her favorite time seemed to be whenever he was trying to catch a nap. And oh, the damn teething. When that set in, there seemed to be no soothing her. And it's not like work came to an end or anything. No, that might have been the biggest source of fatigue. Or perhaps blending the two. Because it wasn't easy to go from being the rough and tough Cerebral Assassin one moment and head out of the arena to the tour bus they were traveling in and be Daddy, the man who'd better find the baby's favorite stuffed bunny because she was not going to sleep without getting to slobber all over it.

This didn't account for the exhaustion that formed upon injury, which did occur during that time period, that served to compound his suffering. Which had hardly passed before, oh, wow, his wife was pregnant again and it seemed even worse that time. It had to be, right? Because now they had a still rather young child at home to deal with who needed their not as constant attention as she once did, but certainly did when nine months turned into a new, littler baby for her to be jealous of.

Why did he want to have kid so close again?

Oh, right. Because they were so perfect when they were behaving and not trying to out wail one another. When his oldest would sit at his side and watch him give the baby her bottle. Or how happy she was for her baby sister, clapping along with her parents, when the baby took her first steps. He liked reading them to sleep when he was home and snuggling them up in the big bed on the tour bus when they weren't.

It made being constantly tired a rather weak argument, honestly, for what he was getting in trade offs. If he had to choose between snuggling up with his girls on the couch to watch a movie (a terrible, little kid movie, with singing and colors and the whole lot), or being able to come home from the road and rest, alone, without the two of them there to cuddle and talk to (or at, sometimes), then it was the former. Hands down. Each time.

He was in love. Plain and simple. In a way he'd never felt before. The same thing had happened with their mother, after all. The second he was with her, truly with her, he just knew it was different. From the feeling down to the thoughts, his whole world view changed. Life view. His main concern had shifted from himself and onto someone else without any resistance whatsoever. Steph was just what he'd been waiting for, his whole life, and once she was in it, things fell into place all on their own.

His babies were no different. The first time he held each of them for that first time, he just felt some sort of completeness in his heart that he hadn't before. A fullness in his chest. And when he'd have to leave them, that first time he'd have to go back on the road after both their births, it turned into a dull ache and he found that he hated not having them with him. Not that he didn't sleep better, at times, when he was away, but he could take their crying to get that ache out. It wasn't as noticeable when he was busy with something, like work or out in the gym, but man, at night, when he was alone, all he wanted was to be as close to them as possible.

They became his heart.

He felt like a real dick at times throughout the course of hi life. Like a real ass. And he was. Partially in character and somewhat just as a distancing mechanism in a cut throat business, the persona of a badass loner who'd love to stab you in the back just fit him. Everyone had that undertone, honestly. But for some reason, just because he'd won the game, became the Game, the stigma got saddled with only him and he felt more attached to it than all the other guys in the locker room. Like maybe he was kind of a douche who'd undercut everyone else. He knew he wasn't. That nothing he'd done had ever been for the absolute obliteration of another, but only the betterment of himself. What all of them were striving for.

It's lonely at the top, he knew that, but what could you say when you were a place or two away from it and you're still targeted for just striving to be?

Steph seemed to feed on it though. His...demeanor. She had this weird thing where she almost wanted him to be a jackass, oh, a little over half the time, but only if it was with a smile and knowing that later, typically at night, he'd kiss under her eyes and tell her all the things that had gone through his head that day, making sure to include some nice words about her and their relationship. It was their thing.

But it wasn't the same with his babies, of course.

They needed him to be silly and safe and loving and to be the one that explained things softer than Mommy because she was stressed, but look, it's okay. She just doesn't want you to throw things at her nice vase is all. We can make sure that doesn't happen, huh? And he read stories way better than her because he had a deeper voice, so he made the Big Bad Wolf and the like sound much more menacing. He might not be as great to snuggle with as Mommy, but he was willing to do it when she wasn't around. That counted for something. He cut the crust off the sandwiches the best and was way better at tickle monster than Mommy was.

They needed him to be Daddy. And Daddy was funny, but not because his dry humor or mean look he got in his eyes when talking to people. He was Daddy in spite of those things.

And it was getting to be Daddy that made the tiredness worth it.

Even when, nine months ago, he and Steph decided to go for broke and have another baby. Which meant more of that readjustment because all of those things that made it so hard the first time then multiplied the second was going to find a third factor in there.

At the moment though, he was still stuck in the pregnant wife exhaustion phase, which was accompanied with the dread of future phases and also addled with a four year old who'd yet to learn the blessings of sleeping in during the end of summer.

How could she though? When she was so excited that he was home to have breakfast with?

She couldn't.

Which is why she'd marched into his room at six in the morning to get him up to start on it.

"Daddy, can watch Bambi today?" she asked as he got up once more to go check on the bacon sizzling in the pan. "Please?"

Glaring down at the stove, he muttered, "Before nap time, okay?"

She didn't get a chance to nod in agreement though (mostly because she was going to protest that they should watch it right then, but after breakfast of course because she was super hungry) as it was then that the sound of her sister wailing from upstairs started up.

"Great," Paul sighed a bit. "The baby's up."

But she wasn't the baby anymore, he reminded himself mentally. She was the big girl. The big girl who was rejected every notion of being so.

Steph was up there though, with the sole intention of getting up when their (for a brief few moments) youngest did. The she'd come down and join them, she yawned, at their oldest when she also went to wake her mother up. This wasn't according to Aurora's plan, as she'd been hoping to get both of her parents undivided attention for a while before her little sister got up (it was so hard to do), but she settled on some daddy time.

It was already panning out; not only was she getting bacon, but also getting to watch Bambi with him at some time.

"Paul," came a loud call from upstairs though, rather suddenly. "Come here!"

And he panicked a bit, at the sound, but had the foresight to turn down the bacon before scrambling off up the stairs. He left his four year old behind, but her curiosity was roused anyways and, leaving that stinkin' book behind, she headed after him.

"What?" He'd skidded to a stop outside of Murphy's bedroom, where his pregnant and miserably so wife was holding their whining toddler. "What's going on? Is it time?"

And she could tell from the way his chest was jumping and his sleepy eyes were completely alert just what time he'd thought it was. But Steph only frowned and held the child out to him.

"My back hurts," was all she said. "Can you-"

"You're not… It's not time," he said, as an answer to himself. Still, he was moving to come out into the room and take his little one. "Is it?"

"No," Stephanie moaned back, far more miserable about this fact than he.

It had been a rather torturous past few days for her, mentally and physically. She wanted that baby out of her, as she put it to Paul the previous night before bed, and soon.

He did as well, but not for the same exact reasons. Some of them, but not all.

As he was left with the whiny one though, he heard Steph leave the room with the much more agreeable child of the hour who asked as they headed downstairs, "Mommy, can we watch Bambi?"

"Mmmhmm."

"Now?"

He didn't hear Steph's answer, but that was only because he didn't want to.

Turncoat.

"What are you cryin' about?" he asked his two year old as she buried her head in his shoulder, turning her sobs more into sniffles. He'd have to go downstairs soon, to finish breakfast, but took a few moments out to give his daughter some cuddles. "You get to be with me. Who wouldn't want that?"

All of his girls, actually, got to be with him that day, as they had the past two. He'd been taking time off work for a bit that year and, though Vince kept trying to throw him into office work (okay, fine, he was more than happy to be thrown in and actually had always wanted his career post-ring to go in that direction), he wasn't going back in until his third baby was there, content, and Steph was fine. He'd always had to leave not soon after the girls were born, to get back on the road, but not this time.

Who knew how many more children they would have?

His mother got in that evening, as she had fallen into a habit of coming down when Steph was close to giving birth. Just another one of his girls to have around, he always figured, and Steph never griped about it.

He was typically the only one that she found unbearable in moments of intense stress.

Because yes, Steph was under that at the moment.

"I'm just tired," she complained to Paul which was the best apology he was going to get for her biting his head off about asking whether or not she'd actually taken the dog outside to pee that afternoon or not. "That's all."

"I know," he conceded because requesting an apology for being bombarded for hate for something that stupid might divulge into tears and he didn't feel like dealing with those in that moment as well.

Steph's mother came by the next morning to visit with Paul's mother, she said, but he had a feeling it was more to check in on her daughter. Who was extra bitchy that morning, he felt. Towards him, that is.

So he let Linda and his mother spend time with her while he mostly hid in the girls' play room where they made demands of a tea party and he was forced to counter with they could only do activities that required minimal cleanup, in case Mommy had to go to the hospital, remember, to have the baby?

They settled on coloring.

He purposely colored out of the lines to get Rora to yell at him.

It reminded him of Steph, who would probably find something more pressing to yell at him if he were around her.

Mmmm.

His women were so good at making him feel loved.

"Daddy, you're no good at colorin'," his oldest complained as his still for that moment youngest mostly contemplated tasting a crayon again.

"Yeah, but I'm great at grammar," he retorted as she reached across the floor from her coloring book to his hand, trying to jerk it back into the lines of the teddy bear he was coloring purple (this also irked her). "It all evens out."

It was during the night though that Steph went into labor. Paul felt no more prepared for it than he would have been had it happened the other day, when she interrupted breakfast by yelling at him. He was just as panicky and worried even though Steph seemed pretty damn calm about it and, as it would turn out, she'd be in labor anyways, for the majority of the day.

The moment was always different.

Or at least that's the determination that he came to after his third daughter came into the world. He'd had this moment twice before and felt entirely different each time. He couldn't say the same for people who had, like, seven or eight kids or some insane number like that, maybe after a certain point, it would feel similar to another experience, but in the land of sane and normality, he felt each had been special and separate from one another.

The third one, in particular, turned out to be the one where he was the same level of nervous, probably, about the typical things, but also about the atypical.

Things didn't go as simply as they had for his first two.

There were 'complications' was what the doctor said and just hearing it scared him shitlless. He was scared for Steph and the baby and he was having to consider things he hadn't before and wow, how was he so shit at channeling adrenaline? When it flowed so quickly through him so often?

Not that it didn't all turn out okay, because of course it did because how could it not? How could it not have? It couldn't not have because it did and that's all that mattered and man, his eyes were watery just thinking about it, but it was over and things had calmed down and Steph wasn't up for seeing anyone after her mother, but that was fine because their baby was there and he was there and, fuck, she was there, and that meant more to him than he ever thought it would.

It didn't feel real, none of it honestly, not safe and secure at least, until he was just sitting there watching his wife nurse their newborn and, man, had he been tense the whole time?

Or just the past hour or so?

Steph's eyes had been down, watching the baby as closely as he was watching her, but they sprang up suddenly to meet his and, sitting back in his seat, he smiled more truly than he had in awhile.

"You okay?" she asked softly which was such a shit thing for her to have to ask. He was so weak. He was so fucking weak. For them. His girls.

But Steph liked him that way, he was pretty sure, and when he nodded, she smiled too and why were his eyes getting wet again?

Because he was in love, he reminded himself when he moved forward to collect the once more content newborn from her mother's arms and into his own, finding it far too easy to slip back into the gentleness required for such a thing than he'd ever thought it could be, back the first time around.

"Of course," he replied as he settled back into the chair, his daughter in his arms looking like she was about ready to drift back off for, hopefully, at least ten minutes because Paul didn't think he could put up with much else. "Just...tired."

"Mmmm," she moaned back in agreement, though her eyes were still on him. "Same."

No. It wasn't. Her tired was far more intense than his.

But she'd pretend for him. Just like he wouldda for her.

"But a good kind," he was quick to add and though Steph didn't agree, he was sure she felt the same.

The next day he found himself down in the lobby, waiting on his mother who'd gone to collect his other girls so they could come the newest one. His oldest (he liked that he'd always be able to call her that) was far more excited than her sister.

"Daddy!" She practically jumped into his arms the second she saw him. It helped, of course, that he was bent over to receive her, but whatever. "We came to see the baby!"

Murph was far less enthralled by the concept.

She was fussy and confused and upset that she hadn't seen her parents and, upon realizing her father was here, it was his arms and his arms only that she wanted to be in. Not that this stopped the whining, as she continued to do this as they headed up to Steph's room to introduce the girls.

"I can go 'cause I'm not a baby," Aurora reminded Paul as he stayed in the hall to calm his middle (that would take some getting used to) child down some before going in. He could hear Steph and his mother both explaining to Rora all the rules of meeting the new baby as well as Rora arguing that she knew these rules, but mostly, he just focused on gently bouncing the toddler in his arms and relishig in the calm before the storm.

Because man, Murphy did not like the concept of the new baby. At all.

She claimed her mother from the start and hardly even seemed to want to interact with the baby. Rora taunted her some for it and Steph worried, but Paul's mother assured them that she'd be more than in love with her new sister in no time.

It actually took some time, but only a few days of being home and being convinced she was 'helping' care for the child when, really, she was just under her parent's feet and was far from doing so. But it made her feel special to hand her father a fresh diaper from the pack or sing to the baby while she nursed.

Aurora, in contrast, was more annoyed with the lack of help she felt she was providing. She wanted to assist them constantly and, fine, they appreciated the concept and it was super cute, something to think about when the girls got older, but both he and Steph were insanely tired and sometimes she was just flat out in the way. Which led to her being told this and then her complaining and whining and, ugh.

"I'm tired," he found himself saying to Stephanie far too often.

"Mmmm," she hummed in agreement one day as he joined her on the couch after struggling to get the older two (weird to say as well, he was finding) down for their naps. "Same."

And that time it was true.

Stephanie fell asleep against his arm and he was just about to join her when he heard it; the baby was up.

Bluto followed him up the stairs, but only stood at attention outside the nursery door, not risking his hearing for the sake of the newborn. Not when her father was right there to tend to her. Alone in there, Paul only shuffled forwards to stare down at his newest daughter with a yawn and a rub at his eyes.

"Hey, Vaughn," he sighed as he reached out for her. "Aren't you tired too?"

Oh, horribly so.

But she was also wet and one trumped the other.

Paul knew all about that, of course, as he too had things that outweighed one another. And at the moment, nothing was more important than tending to her. And even though his smile seemed more like a grimace, she'd learn one day to love it. Because not everyone got to see him that way. But she did.

He was her Daddy.

Her exhausted, counting the hours until the nanny showed up to help out that afternoon, wondering if his body could last that long, Daddy.

But still hers.

That was the most important part.

* * *

 **I know I've been away for a bit. Had a death back in November that set me off track, made me have to move, and kind killed my chances at writing for a bit. Things are still a little off, but hopefully I can post closer to what I was before.**

 **Anyways, this was a request and, now, we've gotten all three births finished up. The list is still long, but we'll wittle our way down eventually. I've gotten some new requests while I've been away and, guys, I already posted the very few things I won't do. I won't write about the kids older than they are now (that's just weird to me) and I won't write about Chyna (that's disrespectful to me) and that's pretty much it. If you asked for something relating to that, it's not happening. Anything else, it was added to the list.**

 **Hope to be back with more soon. And In Sickness as well, for those who ask. Til then...**


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